London Transports (7 page)

And the four hours, well it had been like a dream sequence in a movie. Or rather, like one of those sequences where they show you people making a long journey across America, and they cut from shots of the car on one motorway to another, lights from petrol stations and hotels flash on and off, signposts to cities pass by—and they were in London, and they hadn’t talked much, just sat beside each other listening to both sides of the Johnny Cash over and over, and Lisa never asked where they’d be staying or how they’d hide from all the people from his company who were bound to be at the hotel, or what day she was going to be sent home. She didn’t want to break the magic.

And when they came to London he looked a bit helpless because he didn’t know which way to go, and he turned right once when there was no right turn and a taximan shouted at him, and Lisa was secretly delighted because he looked vulnerable then, and like a little boy, and she wanted to hug him to take the shame away, but she made no move, and finally after an hour of going backward and forward he found the hotel and suddenly he was his old self again. Because the world of hotels is pretty much the same everywhere, it’s just London traffic that can throw you.

She had wondered what to do about a wedding ring. He had never bought her any kind of ring, and she hadn’t liked to get one this morning when she was shopping…well, in case he thought she was being small-townish about it all. Perhaps people didn’t wear rings when checking in, perhaps it was more sophisticated not to. She had worn gloves anyway, it seemed a good way of avoiding doing the wrong thing.

The foyer was huge and impersonal, but full of people and shops, and newspaper kiosks and theatre booking stands. It was very different from the hotel that she and Bill had stayed in when Mother was ill, and had suddenly been taken into hospital in London. That time they stayed in a small hotel near the station, and the woman who ran it asked them for the money in advance, and Bill had said they would have to sleep in the same room to save paying for two. And the woman who ran the hotel had turned out to be nice and kind when she discovered that their mother was dying, and had made tea for Lisa, and had told her how her own mother had died.

And it was different from the hotel that they had all stayed in when Mother and Father and Bill and herself had come to London for a week one October as a treat. That had been owned by a friend of father’s, a North Countryman, and Father said they wouldn’t be robbed there like they would everywhere else. And it had been a vaguely unsatisfactory holiday for no reason that any of them ever understood and none of them ever dared say. Just a lot less than they all had hoped for probably.

But here in Lancaster Gate it was a different world and a different life, and he looked pleased that she was there and that was all that mattered. She smiled at him as the porter took their cases. She had bought one very like his, and got a cosy warm feeling in the lift because the cases looked like matching luggage, the kind of thing they might have been given as a wedding present if they had been a normal couple.

And he must have ordered a room with a double bed especially because she saw from the brochure she had been looking at in the lobby that most of the rooms had twin beds. And he gave her a kiss when the porter had gone, and said, “There’s nothing like a life of sin. Let’s ring for a gin and tonic and let’s go to bed.”

And they did, and then they went out to a restaurant where the Italian waiter asked them if they were married and Lisa said “No” very quickly so that he wouldn’t think she was trying to pretend in any way (except to the hotel) that she
was
his wife, and the waiter said he thought not, they looked too happy and too much in love. And Lisa’s heart, which hadn’t pounded or thudded since that morning, went into a little cotton-wool ball of happiness.

So it was indeed funny the way things turned out, she thought again. Instead of losing out by behaving like a weak-wife type, clinging, dependent, she was being patted on the back and taken on a nice happy trip to London. There was a knock at the door and she leaped off the bed to answer it, thinking it was breakfast. It wasn’t, it was a bowl of fruit and some flowers with a “Compliments” card. She gave the boy twenty pence and hoped that it was enough. He came out of the bathroom, all clean and young-looking, a towel around his waist. He was as excited as a child and nearly as excited as she was.

“Who’s it from, who’s it from?” she begged.

He tried to look casual. “I always arrange little surprises like this for you,” he said, teasing her, and they opened the card.

It was from the president of the company, an American gesture, he said, to make the employees feel they are part of a happy family, to make them pull harder because they think they are being looked after. He was very pleased, even though he wouldn’t show it.

“Must have taken a secretary a long time to write out all these personal cards,” he said, not wishing her to think that he thought the president had written it.

“Still,” said Lisa. “They did go to the trouble.”

She reached out for the card, and her heart became a big ball of putty and sank down in her body. It was addressed to “Mr. and Mrs.” and hoped that they would both enjoy their stay.

“Is it…is it to tell you that they
know
you’ve brought a woman with you?” she asked fearfully.

He looked unconcerned. Not at all, the secretary had probably found out from the hotel which delegates had checked in with their wives and put Mr. and Mrs. on those cards. Just administration. He was putting on the cuff links she had given him and he gave her a kiss on the nose.

She felt that the day was a bit less glorious and immediately felt very angry with herself for feeling that way. What had happened? Nothing. She was a cheat and a tramp, and a mistress, and illegally registered in the hotel as the “Mrs.” she wasn’t. But that was all rubbish. The first night she had gone to bed with him she had rid her mind of all those labels, they didn’t count in anybody’s mind except the fevered minds of a long-gone generation. Why was a silly card upsetting her?

The breakfast arrived and they sat by the window reading the two newspapers that had been sent up as well. She touched his hand when she poured him more coffee. He smiled, and she hoped in a beaten sort of way that it was going to be fairly glorious anyway.

“What shall we do?” he said.

“I’d like to look at the pictures and things they’re hanging up on the railings down there. Maybe I might buy a couple of things.”

“It’s bound to be rubbish,” he said, not disagreeably, but as one who knew about such things.

“All the same, it would be nice to stroll around and then maybe go for a walk in the park,” she said.

“Perhaps we should move farther away from the hotel,” he said. He was right, of course. It would have been idiocy to have hidden it for seventeen months back home, where such things were hard to hide, and then blow it in a city of ten million people, just by parading around in front of people who were bound to know him, and to know that she oughtn’t to be there. Lisa agreed quickly.

“We can go anywhere else,” he said helpfully.

“We could get the underground to St. Paul’s and have a look at that,” she said eagerly, to show that she didn’t mind being a second-best woman, a person who had to be hidden rather than paraded.

“Yes, we could do that,” he said.

“Or walk up to Oxford Street maybe, and look at the shops.”

“They’ll be a bit crowded, Saturday morning,” he said.

She felt the familiar terror, the well-known realization that she was losing his interest came flooding over her. You counter that with brilliant acting, she told herself smartly. You don’t give in, you don’t allow yourself to look beaten or sulky. You act.

“Listen, my love, I’m doing all the suggesting, I don’t mind
what
we do. It’s a glorious day, even the man on the wireless said so. I’ll do whatever you’d like, or anyway I’ll discuss it.”

She smiled the bright birdlike smile that she felt must look so phoney. She always thought she must look like a model in an advertisement on telly who has suddenly been told she must act.

But no, as always, he responded as he would have done to a normal remark.

“Well, I’ll tell you what I’d
like
to do,” he said.

“Yes?” Mask set, eyebrows raised, mouth in inquiring smile.

“It sounds a bit odd but, well, I’ve arranged to have one of these executive health checkups. You know, we were talking about them. They have them on Saturday mornings. Do everything—heart, blood pressure, X rays, blood tests, the lot. It makes more sense than spending hours and days at home.

“They have them on Saturdays so that executives can go without telling anyone at work what they’re up to. When I thought I was going to be here by myself, I booked one for today, and sent a deposit. I could cancel it but you…you know, it seems a pity. It would set my mind at rest.”

The fluttering fear that was never too far from her heart came back and buzzed at her, it even got into her eyes.

“Stop looking worried, funny face,” he said, laughing. “Nothing happens to me, it’s because I do things like this that I’m so healthy. They won’t find anything wrong. It’s just wise to have it done at forty-five, that’s all.”

She was ten years younger and a hundred times slower in every way, in thinking, in walking, in making up her mind, in knowing what to say.

“Are you sure you don’t have any pains or anything?” she faltered.

He was sure, and he was quite willing to cancel it. It was just that they didn’t have anything like this at home, and you know that once you went for any kind of checkup back there, everyone knew about it, and they all had you buried before you came out of the doctor’s surgery. Still, it did seem a pity to waste the nice morning, and she had been saying only yesterday that they didn’t have much time together, just the two of them. Perhaps he would ring and cancel it.

She knew she was being manipulated when she insisted that he go. She knew he used the phrase “just the two of us” in heavy inverted commas. She knew that he had never intended to back out of it for a minute. Anyway she thought it was a good idea for him to have the checkup. So it was on with the act.

No, nonsense, she would be very happy to stroll around herself. She’d meet him afterwards. She’d go down and look at those pictures that he didn’t want to see. It was ideal really, they could each do what they wanted, and then meet for lunch.

He didn’t know whether it would be over by lunchtime. But she thought that this was the point, that the checkup took only a couple of hours. Yes, well he hoped so but maybe they had better not make a firm arrangement for lunch just in case.

Oh act, act. Fine, that suited her too. After she had looked at the paintings on the railings, she’d have a quick look at Oxford Street, and then take the tube to St. Paul’s. She hadn’t been there since she was a child, she’d love to see it again. Don’t cling, don’t cling, you mustn’t appear dependent. Choose some very late time and he’ll suggest earlier. He’ll like you for saying you can manage alone, you’ll like it if he says he wants you earlier. Don’t ruin it, don’t balls up the glorious day.

“Why don’t we say six o’clock here!” Bright, light tone, utterly nonclinging, utterly ridiculous as a suggestion. His examination couldn’t possibly take from eleven in the morning until six at night.

“That sounds about right,” he said, and the day went dark, but the voice stayed bright, and there were no giveaway signs as she bounced cheerfully out the door.

The lobby looked less glittering and glamorous and Londonish. It looked big and full of people who trusted other people or didn’t give a damn about other people. She looked at the house phones on the wall. Should she ring up and just say “Love you”? They did that to each other, or they used to a lot in the beginning. No, it was silly, there was nothing to be gained and it might irritate him. Why risk it?

She wound her way across the road, jumping this way and that to avoid the traffic, because it looked too far to walk to the pedestrian crossing, and anyway she was anxious to get to the other side. It reminded her of Paris, and all those thousands of water colours of Notre-Dame, all of them exactly the same and all of them different prices, or so it seemed.

There was a young man with very red hair and a very white face looking at her.

“Scarf, lady?” he asked hopefully.

“I want to look at everything before I buy,” she said happily.

“Surprising more of you Northerners aren’t killed if that’s the way you cross roads up there,” he said good-naturedly.

He meant it nicely. It was to keep her chatting, she knew that. She also thought that he fancied the look of her, which was nice. She felt it was so long now since anyone had fancied her that she wouldn’t know how to react. But somehow his marking her out as a Northerner annoyed her, she was irritated, even though she knew it was said in friendship. Did she sound provincial, did she look provincial, crossing the road like that?

Suddenly she thought with a violence that made her nearly keel over, that there was a great possibility that he thought she was provincial too. That could be the reason why he wasn’t prepared to make any public announcement of their being together. Not announcement, she didn’t really want as much as that, she wanted…a bit of openness. It was bloody obvious now that she thought of it. Living with someone, having it off with someone, having an affair, all this was accepted now…by everyone.

She stood there, not even seeing the blur of Towers of London, Trafalgar Squares, and Beefeaters that waved like flags from the scarf rack. She could only see herself years ago at suppertime, listening to her mother talking about people who gave themselves airs. Her mother had wanted Lisa always to remember that she came from good stock. They could hold their heads up with any of them, they were as good as anyone for miles around, they had nothing hidden away that could never be dragged out. Lisa and Bill never knew what brought on these kinds of statements, they had never even known what she was talking about. Suddenly Lisa knew. It was the reassurance game, it was trying to say “it’s all right.”